Four Thousand Four Hundred Circles
by Nonsecure
Summary: Set in Washington D.C six years after the events of the end of season four, this entry chronicles the stories of thirteen positives living under the tyrannical and oppressive regime of the United States after the bombing of Promise City.
1. Chapter 1: Wallace

I watched through a cold impartial camera lens as a trio of men attacked a woman half the age of the youngest of her attackers. She was cornered in a dark alley dressed in party clothes too revealing to be considered modest and so sparkly as to be considered fashionable. Clutching her equally sparkly handbag, her face mushed up in fear, she said something to her would be attackers. I had no audio to work with as it were, however I watched as the middle thug threw his head back in what I assumed was laughter. As the middle one talked the other two moved slowly to the far sides of the alley flanking the poor girl who looked to be just out of her teens. The poor thing was so scared that even through an outdated, low resolution security camera I could see her hands shaking as she pulled a small innocuous can from her handbag and held it out in front of her. The lowlife on the left was within arms reach when the woman pulled her mace, and unfortunately he was quicker than her. He grabbed the wrist of the arm holding the pepper spray and twisted violently. I didn't need audio to see her shouting out in pain. I clenched my teeth as the mace went flying to the ground. As soon as the mace was out of the woman's hands the other two moved on her. Within moments the three disgusting examples of moral excrement were tearing the thin material of her dress from the woman's body. She kicked, writhed, scratched, bit, and generally put up a good fight but to no avail. Her efforts merely slowed the inevitable. I breathed hatred and rage when two of the hoodie clad rapists managed to secure her hands and feet to stymie the onslaught of her refusal. The third stood over her saying something that was undoubtedly something to the effect of "stop resisting."

I felt all my tension, worry, and fear for the woman leave me as first responders finally arrived with weapons drawn. I had pinged the nearest police department under the guise of a text message sent through the phone system nearly ten minutes ago when the supers first alerted me to a probable attack in progress. Most modern police forces could respond to a text message as easily as they might respond to a 911 call, and the police in D.C were no different. I breathed a sigh of relief when the things, that barely deserved to be called men, were cuffed and escorted out of frame of the security camera I was watching though. EMS arrived soon after and took the victim out of frame as well. I tasked one of my clusters to monitor the police department's internal network for the creation of a case file regarding the attack. When the case file was created I would slip the video from the camera in as evidence complete with a doctored chain of custody. My work finished I mopped up all evidence of my presence on the bank's network and unplugged from it.

I opened my eyes and looked up at the black, starless night sky. God, that alley was less than a mile from the bench I was sitting on in what served as D.C's warehouse district. Yet in the middle of the country's damn capital, things like rape still occurred with frightening regularity.

"You alright?" Chris asked. I looked at the ginger empath seated next to me and shook my head.

"I don't know man" I replied. There was no point trying to explain what I was feeling to Chris, he probably understood my emotions better than I did.

"You smell… depressed I think," he said wrinkling his freckled nose. I let out a scoff of laughter without thinking.

"What, pray tell, does depression smell like?" I asked absentmindedly as I began to set my mind to a task that was vastly more important than saving random innocents from unspeakable if pedestrian violence.

"Smells a bit like ash unless mixed with other emotions"

I plugged into several different police networks and tasked a cluster to focus on monitoring comms traffic between cruisers and public-safety answering points. If the cluster saw words from a pre-determined list being used, or words the software judged to be code words it would alert me. It would also alert me with a higher priority if it observed encrypted traffic to which it had no key.

"Like if someone is pissed and depressed they smell kinda like spicy ash, like if you mixed ash and cinnamon" Chis continued.

I plugged into NTAC's internal network and tasked another cluster with similar comms monitoring duties albeit with much stricter parameters for alerts. Any alert coming from that cluster was given the highest priority.

"Or if someone is like jealous and depressed they'll smell kinda like burnt money" Chris continued. He went to say more but I had to interrupt him.

"Burnt money? Really?" I asked my brow raised and my voice reflecting the incredulity I felt. He shrugged in response.

"Kinda but I've explained before that the way emotions smell to me is completely unique. Like the burnt money description is just the thing that smells the most like depression colored with jealousy but the actual smell isn't quite the same" He said struggling to find the right words to aptly describe his particular brand of empathic telepathy. I grunted noncommittally and set myself back to the task at hand.

With the comms traffic of the relevant enforcement agencies tapped I just needed to locate all the members of the meeting to make sure I knew who was coming, from where, and how long it would take them to get to the warehouse. To these ends I plugged into the local mobile cell service group. The network allowed me to track certain phones in real time over a geographic map. I identified all ten of the individuals I had invited to my little meeting and tracked them through the gps devices installed on their cell phones. Only eight showed up on the map which meant that either two phones were off or had their GPS devices turned off. Most of the phones were moving in the general direction of the warehouse. I tracked their movements for a few minutes while Chris explained some more equivalences between emotions and smells. After five minutes I fed the movements of all eight phones into a cluster along with traffic information and public transit schedules from Google. The cluster did some quick math and reported that the earliest of the arrivals would be at the wherehouse in thirty minutes at the earliest. The latest of the arrivals would be there in an hour at the earliest.

After unplugging from everything except my primary node I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose where the telltale beginnings of a migraine started to throb. I had to stay connected to the primary because it was connected to the comms clusters that I needed to monitor until the end of the meeting, just to make sure that everyone brave enough to attend would be safe. Staying plugged in for any significant period of time would only feed the migraine. Given a few hours the pain would feel like thousands of spikes being pounded into my head to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I had passed out from the pain of overexerting my ability once. It was not an experience that I was eager to relive.

"I've got ibuprofen if you need it." Chris said. He did not need to ask if I was in pain, he could smell my reaction to the migraine as easily as I might access his phone records.

I shook my head "it won't help" I said. NSAIDs did nothing when it came to the head splitting pain of my migraines. As a point of fact nothing helped fight off the pain, or at least nothing I had tried so far including drugs that were less than legal. "Come on, we should get going" I said. I stood expecting Chris to follow, which he did as always.


	2. Chapter 2: Star

We sat in silence. I glanced quickly at my watch again. Twenty minutes of silence. I came to the address I received, rather cryptically from a text without an accompanying number, just over twenty minutes ago. The address had led me to a line of small warehouses just inside the D.C. city border. The specific warehouse in question seemed like all the rest; squat, dirty, and altogether unimpressive. Upon entering I found, to my relative disappointment, that the inside looked very similar to the exterior in its dirty, heavy industry, and utilitarian charm. There were three men that looked to be just out of boyhood, each seated in one of the thirteen black folding chairs situated in a circle facing inward. They sat apart without speaking. The tall Asian had his head back and eyes closed with headphones jammed securely in his ears. The ungainly ginger was reading some thin paperback. The chubby white one, dressed in what could only be described as goth chic, had his head tilted back with eyes wide open and completely glazed over focusing on nothing in particular. I took a seat away from all three of them.

Over the next twenty minutes the circle's chairs filled up until finally all thirteen of them were occupied with people from all walks of life. Most were younger dressed in a myriad array of clothes from pajamas all the way up to the creme de la creme of fashion. They all seemed perfectly random. All different ages, different ethnicities, and obviously differing economic dispositions. I knew, however, that there was at least one thing that all of these seemingly random people most likely had in common; we were all positive. I could see it in the way they shifted their eyes to all corners of the room before entering. I could smell it in their nervous sweat, feel it in their uneasy tension. It helped that I myself felt the same paranoia. They were all probably asking themselves the same thing that I was at that very moment. Is this a trap? Am I going to be shot and buried next to so many other positives who fell to NTAC and its tyrannical trampling of basic human rights? Nobody asked the question. No one needed to. The silence was enough.

Just when the maddening silence of thirteen terrified people reached the point of becoming unbearable the chubby one stood. Twelve pairs of eyes seeking some kind of solace bore down on him, silently demanding answers. I kept my eyes away from his, instead focusing on his forehead.

"Before we start tonight let me first thank you all for coming. I praise the bravery of each and every one of you for coming out despite the lack of information. Unfortunately we live in an atmosphere that makes electronic communication dangerous and perhaps fatal, because of this I tried to keep my messages brief and to the point."

He spoke loudly meeting each set of positive eyes. The clear mark of a practiced speech. He had rehearsed this.

"Now, I know some of you have been waiting for some time, and I apologize for the inconvenience, however we thought it best to wait for everyone to arrive before starting."

The kid turned to a table set up against the far wall, and started operating the small laptop connected to gargantuan speakers and a the projector that sat there. One of the older gentlemen in the group spoke up finally asking a simple question.

"So, what's your name?"

The kid turned smiling at the tweed clad man who looked to be at least 30 years his senior and simply asked "what's yours?" The older man's silence spoke volumes. Who could blame him? He sat, as we all did, in room full of people whose very existence was illegal. Ask a man his name in that situation and he's bound to clam up.

"Your distrust is understandable, if disappointing, and we'll address it in a minute. But before that, the man that brought us here would like to introduce himself."

The projector next to the kid started up and displayed an open Skype call with no picture. The name on the screen simply read Jordan. A familiar raspy, withered, strong, and defiant voice blasted with calm sincerity and polite civility from the speakers.

"If the revealing of names to strangers makes you so uncomfortable, then allow me to ease your nerves. I am Jordan Collier. I brought you all here firstly for your own safety, and secondly to help protect and hide your fellow positives."

The voice coming from the speakers continued with what sounded like an impassioned delivery of a kind of mission statement for a community watch of positives for positives. The singular shock of hearing Collier's voice again resounded through me.

"You're dead." I said simply in between "Collier's" sentences. The majority of the group had been staring at the gray outline of a head on the screen, seemingly enchanted by "Collier's" performance. As soon as I spoke all eyes focused on mine.

"Jordan Collier died in the bombing of Promise City" I said to a place holder on a screen.

"I'll admit my supposed 'death' was over-played in the media and I did nothing to disillusion them of that notion, however my organization and I are alive and well. In fact this is one of the reasons I contacted all of you. We need an outlet in the capital, a cell to keep track of NTAC and the Department of Homeland Security in order to help coordinate a massive migration for the positives still trapped in Washington."

The voice railroaded through another speech about positives looking after their own in a national sense this time. Hearing him speak again was relieving, but it wasn't him. It couldn't be.

"And to these ends I've appointed Wallace to preside over these meetings." The kid stood at his cue. I deliberately looked him in the eye and felt that familiar falling feeling as I remembered. I remembered when Wallace planned this meeting with the ginger Chris and the Asian who went by Sinclair. I remembered when they met in this very warehouse for the first time. Wallace had found the two in much the same way he had found the other ten individuals with whom he now shared a circle; his ability.

The kid looked up at the projected screen breaking eye contact with me. I glanced at Chris and Sinclair. They were both carefully listening to "Jordan" which only confused me further. They both knew the purpose of the circle, and they both presumably knew everything that "Jordan" might have to say. So why listen so intently? Maybe because they believed it was actually Jordan Collier speaking and were thus awed. I doubted that. Much of the magic surrounding the story of Jordan Collier evaporated with his actual death. It was rare these days to find even a positive who respected Collier the way his early followers had. Perhaps they both wished to seem as if they knew only as much as the ten other positives, and pretending to pay close attention was merely a means to that end. But why would they want to pretend they didn't know what was going on? I couldn't see the advantage of not introducing the two of them with Wallace. Unless they were afraid of a raid. But even if NTAC swooped in that very moment, it wouldn't have mattered who was in charge. We would all be either shot on the spot or questioned and then shot. They were both looking away from me at the projected screen, so I couldn't look through either of them that very moment. Nothing to do but bide my time I supposed.

"To do this, to protect our kind, we must be vigilant and trusting of one another. Which is why you are all in a circle. Each of you is now an integral part of this group whether or not you wish to be. Some of you are going to feel nervous about this and that's fine, just know that the other twelve people sitting around you might need your help someday. And you might one day need theirs."

Wallace was looking at the members of this Circle undoubtedly judging our reactions as "Jordan" spoke. I caught his eye and looked through him as he glanced to me. After I felt that tug downwards I remembered something completely indecipherable. It was just a long complex series of numbers that meant something, but I was lacking that essential information to lead me to meaning. The kid looked away quickly this time. That was weird. Never had I looked through someone before to see just math and numbers. I knew he had memories that I could reach, I had remembered some of them just a moment ago. Was he blocking me? Was that possible? I tracked the kid's gaze as a small throbbing began behind my eyes.

"So, now that you know what we're all about does anyone have any questions for me?" I still couldn't get used to hearing Jordan's voice again, it reminded me of the man and all his vague and cryptic nonsense. The tweed-clad gentleman suddenly spoke reiterating his question from before.

"Am I to understand that you already know all of our names?" He asked loudly, his question only slightly muddled by what I assumed was a German accent.

"Yes, of course. I know quite a lot about each of you, as it were. I would not put any positive wishing to meet their own in a room with people I had not personally vetted." The screen said still imitating Collier's patient and gentle demeanor.

"Did you share this information with your subordinate?" The German said turning his skeptical gaze toward Wallace.

"My _subordinate_ as you call him is not privy to your private information, however he does know the abilities of the more… dangerous elements in the circle." The German nodded, seemingly contented.

"You know our abilities?" came a timid voice from the young girl sitting to my left. She was bony and dirty. The thin denim jacket draped over her shoulders was torn and had what appeared to be singe marks running up the sleeves.

"Those that made themselves apparent," the screen answered.

"And those that are less apparent?" I asked.

"We've made some educated guesses. I was hoping that, throughout the course of this meeting and those to follow, you would feel comfortable sharing the specifics of your abilities with your fellow positives and that our research would be thereby rendered irrelevant. We are all here for the same reasons remember, and knowledge of your abilities will help everyone around you feel more at ease." I nodded in much the same way the German had, feigning complacency. Wallace was obviously the one behind this Collier illusion, so he must already have all the information that Jordan claimed to have, and he put it to good use finding everyone and bringing them here to rally under the banner of Jordan Collier's cause. He had everyone's personal information and it could be reasonably assumed he knew the abilities of the thirteen individuals seated around him, including me. He couldn't know, could he? My ability wasn't something that you could see happening, and no one knew I was looking past them and remembering their memories when I used it, as far as I knew, so how could he know? An educated guess? Unlikely. No, he can't know, I decided. The most he could have was a suspicion and even then it was extremely unlikely that he would be able to guess the mechanism by which my ability worked. I was safe.

"If that is all, Wallace will take over from here on in." The Collier clone said, seemingly eager to excuse himself. Rather unlike the actual Jordan Collier.

"One moment Mr. Collier." Said the old lady, sitting on the other side of the dirty girl to my right, in a slight British accent.

"I want to be perfectly clear with you on something," she said with clear annunciation, "if we choose to participate with this group can you guarantee that we will not be involved in any kind of battle or loss of life?" Everyone's eyes snapped to the projected gray outline, except Wallace's. He stared at the floor lost in thought.

"There are no guarantees when dealing with an organization like NTAC whose sole purpose is willful genocide." the Collier clone said slowly and deliberately, "but rest assured, we are not here to take an eye for the countless innocents we have lost. Our purpose is not to shed blood onto an already bloody battlefield, and combat will never be asked of any of you. We seek only that which every living thing on the planet seeks, survival. You will all face atrocities in the future simply because of your existence, at least with the circle you will be existing with those who understand and can help your plight. This is all we will ever ask." The Collier clone paused and everyone looked around the circle realizing what he was saying. We didn't have to be alone.

"Now, Wallace if you will take over I have pressing business to attend to." Collier's voice said just before the Skype call ended and the projected screen went black. We sat in a sudden and protracted silence.

"Well I don't know about anyone else, but I think I just bought the cause of a ghost," the Asian, Sinclair, said earning a nervous chuckle from most of the group, or rather as Wallace's illusion put it, the circle.


	3. Chapter 3: Ted

"I shouldn't have come to this thing high," I thought to myself for what seemed like the hundredth time. The note that was mailed to me inviting me to this little shindig promised a safe meet-and-greet with other local positives, not a freaking séance to summon back the dead to form a pseudo-militia. And regardless of what a computer masquerading as Jordan said, that's what this would turn into. That's what it always turned into. I'd been part of dozens of groups like this since I came back, or was returned, or whatever, and they always ended up finding the most deadly abilities and killing people with them.

"I'll stay for a little while, but if this starts to drag out, I'm out of here," I promised myself just to ease the tension that was building between my shoulder blades.

"And what about you?" The boy asked me. Crap, I missed something. Everyone in the circle was looking at me expectantly. I shouldn't have come to this thing high.

"What?" I asked ever so eloquently.

"We're introducing ourselves," said the Asian on my left. The kid to his left, the white one, what was his name? Wallie or something, was standing up looking on thoughtfully.

"Introduce yourself then," I said. "Ha, gotcha kid" I thought to myself. The Asian seemed befuddled. He looked back at Wallie then to me again with this painfully confused look on his face. Crap, I missed something.

"I just did." I sighed at his response. Of course he did. I shouldn't have come to this thing high.

"Sorry, I was zoning out, mind doing it again?" I asked. The words felt like they were sliding out of my mouth and dribbling on my shirt. I looked down just to make sure they weren't.

"Hey, what's with you man? You high or something?" This little Latino punk across the circle from me said in a weirdly fluid Spanish accent. He was dressed in a decent leather coat over a black undershirt with a pair of dirty jeans. His boots were nice though. It took me a minute to realize I hadn't answered him. It took me another minute to realize I'd forgotten what the question was.

"What were we talking about?" The Latino kid scoffed, a few people laughed, and the Asian to my left said "We're introducing ourselves."

"Well then, introduce yourself." I said with the queerest sense of deja-vu. The Asian laughed along with most everyone in the circle.

"My name is Sinclair," he said slowly, like he was talking to an invalid "what's yours?"

"Ted," I said simply.

"And what's your ability Ted?" Sin asked with that same slow demeanor of a parent patiently chastising a child, and a small grin on his face. I looked around the circle to see most everyone grinning in some fashion. Oh yeah, they were all getting a kick out of this. Except the German. He was staring straight at the old lady across the circle from him. Weird.

"Ted?" The Asian to my left said, trying to get my attention. What was his name? It was something strange. Damn, I shouldn't have come to this thing high.

"What?"

"Your ability, what is it?" Sin asked. That was his name, Sin.

"What's yours Sin?" I asked. Tit-for-tat only seemed fair at this point. Wallie's patience seemed to evaporate then.

"Are you fucking serious? What the hell are you on?" He suddenly shouted at me. Harsh, but not entirely unfair I supposed, and it was a good question. The strain of marijuana-poppy hybrid that I smoked on the way here was new and its effects were untested. The high was nice but obviously it wasn't very conducive to conversation. I pulled the small notebook from my breast pocket and flipped it to the page concerning the new hybrid and wrote down "concentration break down" I checked my watch "forty minutes after inhalation. Body high; indeterminate." I flipped the notebook closed and realized everyone was watching me with suspicion. Alright, time to end this.

"Do you mind if we pause for a second? I need a breather." I said to Wallie who looked pissed enough to blow a gasket.

"Whatever," he said "just make it quick." I nodded and slipped slowly out of my seat. As I made my way to the door I forgot why I was leaving. He didn't throw me out did he? That asshole kid, what was his name? I opened the door to the little warehouse and the sudden blast of midwinter night wind reminded me. I needed to sober up. I closed the door and pulled out a cigarette and my thermos. I opened the thermos and drank deep. The tea inside was bitter but warm and the heat of it seemed to spread from my stomach to my veins and throughout my body. My heart was suddenly pounding and my every pore seemed to begin to sweat simultaneously. My hands were shaking fiercely as I tried to light my cigarette, unsuccessfully. I couldn't seem to get my thumb to operate the wheel on the lighter properly, plus the sweat on my thumb made it slip.

"I'll light that for you if you bum me one," someone said from behind me. I turned to find a dirty young white girl in front of me. She was wearing a denim jacket over what looked like a plain white tee shirt, although from what I could see of the shirt, it had acquired many stains over its lifetime.

"Are you even old enough to smoke?" I asked as I handed her my lighter. She lit it with ease and held it under my cigarette as I cupped my shaking hands around the tiny flame to protect it from the wind.

"I'm old enough to do a lot of things," she said with what I assume she meant to be a suggestive look as I took a long drag from my now lit cigarette.

"Eww," I said without scorn or judgment as I put my pack of pre-rolls back in my pocket and pulled out a pack of branded smokes and offered her one. She gave me a heated look as she took a smoke, put it in her mouth, and moved my lighter under it. When she clicked it the normally small flame leapt up in a gout burning the quarter end of the cigarette off into ash nearly immediately, and as quickly as the flame appeared it went out. I blinked and shook my head. She handed me the lighter and I checked to make sure the little metal regulator was still intact.

"There's nothing wrong with it," the girl said, watching me inspect my lighter. Weird. I didn't think there was much of a chance of hallucinations with the new hybrid, and my tea should have burned most of the remaining high out already. I looked at the girl again, reassessing her.

"What's your name?" I asked politely. She blew out a plume of pale blue smoke in a manner I'm sure she thought was sultry or something before answering.

"Aiden." No coughing. A smoker at the depressing age of way too young. I thought schools were supposed to be teaching kids the dangers of cancer and all that jazz.

"So, Aiden. Why aren't you inside introducing yourself with the rest of them?" I asked, seeking only to satisfy my curiosity. She took another drag and bunched her face up in a grimace.

"Ugh, don't you have any menthol?" She said evasively. Interesting.

"No," I said plainly before adding, "sorry."

"Then what was that other pack?" Her tone was decidedly accusatory. She didn't seriously think I would hide menthols away only to offer non-menthols to bummers. That would be very… strange.

"You wouldn't like these," I said trying not to be patronizing, "they've got more than just tobacco in them." Mine was a warning that apparently earned nothing more than an eye roll.

"Oh please, I've smoked weed before." She said very matter-of-factly, colored with just the barest hint of concealed pride. I didn't want to be mean but there was just something about teenagers that brought it out in me.

"Mmmm, I sure you're quite the little pot-head." Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but damn I could wield it effectively. Aiden's face flushed bright red and her brows knit down furiously with injured pride. I bit back a laugh.

"Calm down," I said before she could unload on me "it's not weed. It's a tobacco-cocoa hybrid leaf of my own design. You won't like it unless you enjoy shaking for hours on end and shitting out everything you ever thought of eating in a single explosion of diarrhea." Aiden coughed on her next exhale although I suspect it had more to do with the imagery than her cigarette.

"Why the hell are you smoking something like that?" She asked with a look in her eye that suggested that I was slightly insane. With an apprehensive look she stepped out of the way of my exhaled smoke, which was probably wise.

"It's a great stimulant. This plus what's in my tea," I said holding up my thermos "has jacked my metabolism up high enough that I'm already nearly sober." Aiden raised her brow at that.

"Ok fine. You're right. I don't want one of those." I couldn't help laughing at that.

"Is that why you're shaking so bad? I thought you were just cold," she asked. I nodded.

"Yeah, speaking of which, aren't you cold?" I asked suddenly realizing she wasn't wearing particularly warm clothing and it was several degrees below freezing. I glimpsed the panic in her eyes that she tried to hide before nonchalantly saying, "Whatever I'm from Chicago. This is nothing." I nodded deciding not to push it.

I took one last drag from my smoke before flicking the butt into the street.

"Well I _am_ getting cold, so let's head back inside." She nodded her agreement before flicking her own cigarette butt and opening the the door for me.

"Ladies first," she said with a grin. It was my turn to roll my eyes as I walked back into the warehouse, shaking like a leaf and sweating my ass off.


End file.
